PR: ECOGRA REPORT ON THE GRAND PRIVÉ AFFILIATE PROGRAM INVESTIGATION

[jetset]

I'm afraid I cannot accept that your experience as an affiliate qualifies you to make judgements on the efficacy of the eCOGRA professional audit, W - the two qualifications are quite disparate...but you raise an interesting point regarding players active post-the GP Affiliate Program shutdown - the lack of performance of referred players in that time.

My own speculation - and that's all it is, because I have no more proof of my assertions than you have - is that affiliates may have been hoist by their own petard, so to speak - specifically by the massive bad publicity that was generated against GP for its lack of communication and refusal to address the fact that it had overlooked some affiliates when it negotiated compensation deals with others prior to the program being discontinued.

Edited to add that reading back over this post I find myself guilty of the same guesswork as those I have argued with, and for that I am sorry. Let's try and stick with the facts here and see what eCOGRA has to say with regard to the Referspot and player tag possibilities.

If GP has misled eCOGRA I suspect there will be some pretty serious consequences.

[Webzcas]

I'm afraid I cannot accept that your experience as an affiliate qualifies you to make judgements on the efficacy of the eCOGRA professional audit

If as I suspect eCOGRA were not provided with all the information required ( ie the referspot players ) then the blame does not lie at their door. But whether you accept my experience as an affiliate or not, I know for a fact that players enmasse do not all disappear overnight which is pretty much what the investigation is concluding. Hence my assertion the report and audit is flawed.

I have provided two possible scenarios as to why it is flawed and I am of the belief that they ( eCOGRA ) have not been provided with the full information necessary to complete the audit.

If GP has misled eCOGRA I suspect there will be some pretty serious consequences.

Who knows, it could have been an oversight on GP's part. But I am very interested to hear what Andrew comes back with.

[dominique]

Luckily eCOGRA sees more merit in affiliate feedback than Jetset and they are looking into it.

Developments since yesterday, i.e. more affiliates reporting on their findings, further confirm that the Referspot legacy statistics do not figure in the calculations.

Understanding the affiliate business has nothing to do with it, you are right Jetset. I only explained about that because we are guests on a player oriented board here and it matters that players understand the issue and how it affects them.

At this time, the only thing that matters in regard to my conclusions is the way the numbers crunch. And that makes my conclusions clear as day.

[jetset]

That snidey little introductory remark is totally uncalled for and unwarranted, Dom - you disappoint me.

But thank you for the progress report.

[dominique]

Sorry Jetset, I didn't mean to be snide. Accept my apologies, please.

[jetset]

Accepted.

Let's be clear here - I am in no way defending or condoning GP's actions. I believe this company initially handled this issue incredibly badly and maybe even dishonestly and then made it even worse for themselves by pulling up the drawbridge.

I do, however have a healthy respect for eCOGRA's capabilities and integrity, hence my efforts to keep things on a factual and objective level rather than see an affiliate lynch party start up before eCOGRA has had a fair chance to address your questions and perhaps explain the position regarding alleged discrepancies.

For the record, I have encouraged affiliate feedback as my previous posts show.

[dominique]

There isn't any lynch party going on. Only efforts to aid eCOGRA in figuring out the apparent discrepancies.

[jetset]

Please read my post again.

Quote: "...hence my efforts to keep things on a factual and objective level rather than see an affiliate lynch party start up..." Unquote

Meanwhile keep up the good work in carrying on a sensible dialogue with eCOGRA.

[universal4]

I would be all for the facts to be looked at and examined.

Have GP turn the old referspot stats back on.

Have eCogra look at the players ID numbers and cross reference them to the stats from GP.

Then they could get an idea at how many players disappeared during that first big ******.

(Sorry, I had a few ideas of what to put there in place of the stars, none of which is appropriate for public consumption...)...maybe use "screw-up"

Sure, turning the old stats on would be a big pain, and slightly difficult, but I am 100% sure they have decent workable backups that they could install and restore on a few servers so eCogra could take a look.

Like many others, I just have trouble accepting that almost ALL players stopped playing almost immediately....

Rick

[spearmaster]

I do, however have a healthy respect for eCOGRA's capabilities and integrity...

I will vouch for Andrew and Tex's integrity, and thus that of eCOGRA. There is absolutely no question of this.

However, I do feel that their capabilities are not up to scratch. This is ultimately why I seem to disagree with them much more often than I would expect.

I have already made my opinions about this issue to them early last year and nothing has changed despite the subsequent audit.